Inline and Online Process Analytical Technology with an Outlook for the Petrochemical Industry

Abstract

The concept of process analytical technology (PAT) started around the 1970s with the advent of personal computers in combination with instrumental analytical chemistry. Over the years, increasingly sophisticated and holistic quality management concepts such as quality by design (QbD) were developed and strongly promoted, especially by the American Food and Drug Agency (FDA) around 2002. Recently, the German initiative for the Fourth Industrial Revolution “Industrie 4.0 (i40)” was introduced, which is similar to the US “Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC)” concept or the “Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).”Another initiative in Asia is the Chinese campaign “Made in China 2025.” The role of PAT in all these concepts is to develop and integrate context-sensitive intelligent sensors to enable understanding of the process at the basic mechanistic (molecular) level in order to achieve knowledge-based production in the future. This contribution starts with a short introduction into the concept of PAT/QbD and other new concepts for the next generation of spectroscopic sensors in the manufacturing industry. The fundamental limitations of spectroscopy in terms of sensitivity and selectivity are discussed, and the need to increase robustness for industrial applications is described. A critical discussion on problems and problem solutions are provided when scattering samples are investigated. An outlook on howto use NIR spectroscopywithin the petrochemical industry and how to manage a PAT project complements this chapter.